


Back to Boston

by Gwyn_Paige



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 4
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Mutual Pining, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-10
Updated: 2016-01-10
Packaged: 2018-05-13 00:51:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,746
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5688259
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gwyn_Paige/pseuds/Gwyn_Paige
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which MacCready is a little bit in love, Sloan pisses off a swamp creature, and the both of them are kind of fucked.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Back to Boston

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this as a Christmas gift for my good buddy redtypewriter a few weeks ago, and at her encouragement I've done a little editing and decided to post it here. Please be advised that the Intel graphics on my poor laptop can't handle Fallout 4, so I've only played a few hours of it at my aforementioned friend's house, which means that some of the stuff in here might be a little off. Redtypewriter helped me with a lot of the inconsistencies, but even she can't catch everything, so if there's anything you guys see that doesn't make sense/is inconsistent with lore, don't hesitate to let me know.
> 
> Disclaimer: Sloan and Tommy (RIP Sloan's hot Irish Catholic hubby) are redtypewriter's creations. They are awesome and I wouldn't be able to come up with them if I tried. Also, like Mac, I know nothing about baseball. Unlike Mac, I also know nothing about sniper rifles.
> 
> And now, on with the show!

MacCready has fucked up.

 _Screwed up._ Whatever.

As far as he’s been able to figure over the years, there are two key rules to follow when it comes to mercenary work. In order of importance, they are: 1) do not murder your employer, and 2) do not _fall in love_ with your employer.

MacCready has managed to break rule number two in what he’s pretty sure is record time.

It wasn’t an immediate thing, by any means. All that _love at first sight_ stuff—he’s read about it in novels and comic books he’s found, back in Lamplight and afterwards, when he was traveling with Lucy, but he’s always thought it was bullsh— _ugh_. Untrue. He still stands by that—any kind of love that comes from your first perception of someone isn’t headed anywhere good.

When he first met Sloan, MacCready had just thought she was strange. She was wearing dirty, mismatched armor like most down-on-their-luck travelers did, but she also had a Pip-Boy and a shiny ring on her finger that looked almost new, which were sure signs that she had caps. That was all the incentive MacCready needed to jump on her offer for a merc job—his first in a while, but he was really hurting for caps.

And _then_ she tugged at the rug underneath him when she convinced him to take 200 rather than his (honestly pretty cheap) initial offer of 250. _Why_ MacCready had let her shortchange him like that, he’ll never know.

Well. Come to think of it, he does have _some_ idea.

Maybe he just liked the particular way she smiled, with her nose kind of scrunched and one corner of her mouth a little higher than the other. Maybe it was the way her nails were almost flawless but the outline of a pistol could clearly be seen strapped against her calf. Maybe it was the freckles. Lucy had freckles. Not that the two facts have anything to do with each other. Not at all.

Whatever the reason, his and Sloan’s first meeting hadn’t exactly gone what he would call _well_. It had started with a job offer and ended with her basically stealing fifty caps from him.

They’ve cleared the air between them a bit since then—MacCready has told her about his past with the Gunners and Little Lamplight, and with Lucy and Duncan. It takes Sloan a little longer, but eventually she tells him her much more interesting and horrifying story about being frozen in a tube for two hundred years, losing her husband, discovering her child as an old man who she ended up killing, and finding a synth who she basically pretends is her kid and who still lives with her in a refurbished truck stop she now calls home. MacCready pretty much figures she wins by default in the tragic backstory category.

Which is why it surprised him when Sloan seemed all too eager to help him with his own problems—finding Duncan’s medicine, getting the Gunners off his back, listening and sympathizing when he told her about what happened to Lucy. Small things, he figures, in comparison to what she had to go through before they met. Then again, he thinks, maybe that’s why she did it.

And now he’s well and truly fu— _argh_. Screwed over. Because you don’t just do those kinds of things for someone you consider a hired merc, someone who you’re only paying to watch your back while you save people from radroaches and raiders. Hell, you don’t even do those kinds of things for a business partner, which is apparently what they are now, even if MacCready still calls Sloan “Boss” and still considers her one. Those are the kinds of things you do for a friend, a good friend. Because there was a point, somewhere in the mess of jobs and negotiations and skirmishes, when MacCready stopped following Sloan around the Wasteland for the caps and started following her around because he cared. Maybe a little too much, even. And MacCready tries not to get his hopes up, or think too hard about the particular way his stomach leaps when Sloan calls his name, but he doesn’t know how much longer he can keep this up. Because it’ll be a cold day in hell when he says something to her before she says something to him.

Sloan is still in mourning, despite her cheerful demeanor and the dumb jokes she makes (which MacCready thinks are funny, and frustratingly he can only stifle his laugh about half the time), and he understands more than anybody that after losing a spouse you need time to grieve. MacCready isn’t going to get in the way of that, not now and maybe not ever. He misses Lucy every single day, and thinking about her still makes his chest ache, but he’s had two years to move on. Sloan has only had a handful of months.

Since meeting her, he’s learned that the shiny, expensive-looking ring she wears is a wedding ring from before the war. Sometimes he’ll catch her fingering it, turning it around and around on her finger, like she’s making sure it’s still there. She misses him, MacCready knows, and judging by how often she fiddles with the ring, she thinks about him a lot.

It’s only fair of him to give her space, time to grieve, let her make her own decisions. He’s not going to push it. That’s what he keeps telling himself. _I’m not going to push it._

He’ll try not to, anyway.

At the moment, they’re not on any particular mission—just walking along the road on the way to Diamond City, weapons drawn but mostly just as a precaution, because they’ve got a good view and the road looks clear ahead. Dogmeat is scouting ahead of them, joyfully trotting along and wagging his tail. The sky is a shade of blue MacCready has only seen in Nuka-Cola ads, and he’s sure if there were birds around, they’d be singing. Not a bad day at all for a hike.

Sloan is kicking at the loose gravel as she walks, making noise out of habit, still not completely used to a world where silence is one of the most important methods of survival. MacCready stops himself from reminding her—again—to keep it down, because he’s tired of doing it. That’s what he tells himself, anyway. The real reason is maybe closer to the fact that he sort of wishes they could afford to be this carefree all the time, with the picturesque weather and the promise of endless open road stretching out before them.

He’s startled out of his thoughts when he hears Sloan give a cry off to his left. He turns to see her kneeling in the dirt by the side of the road, one freckled hand shielding her eyes from the glare of the late afternoon sun. She’s examining something in the dust, and as MacCready comes closer, satisfied she’s not in any kind of danger, he can see that she’s excited about something.

“Oh boy, I haven’t seen one of these since before I got here,” Sloan is saying, turning something over in her hand. Dogmeat has wandered over, sniffing at it, and she nudges his nose away gently. “My mother used to bring one out every year at Christmastime, and I’d play with it like it was a real toy soldier . . .”

Sloan holds the thing up for MacCready to see, and it does look just like a little toy soldier. Not unlike the one Lucy had made for him, only more boxy and decked out in red instead of green. This one also looks considerably older, which would make sense if it was from before the war. There’s dust and sand coating almost every inch of it, but he can make out a toothy grin and the hint of a curled, black mustache beneath the grime.

“If it’s not a toy soldier, what is it?” he asks, turning it over in his hands.

“It’s a nutcracker,” Sloan says, the amusement in her tone giving away the “of course” she doesn’t add to the end of her sentence. For the first few trips they made together, Sloan was constantly asking questions about things that were completely normal to MacCready (which made a lot more sense after she told him what had happened to her), so she was always smug when she got to teach him about something for a change. MacCready was indignant about it for a while. Now he only pretends to be, because pre-war stuff is interesting and Sloan loves telling people about pre-war memorabilia even more than she loves collecting it.

“And what’s a nutcracker?” MacCready says, feigning annoyance as always.

“What does it sound like?” Sloan says. “It cracks nuts for you. See that lever on the back?” She takes the toy from him and points. “You open its mouth like this”—she demonstrates—“and stick a walnut or something between its teeth, and slam down the lever as hard as you can, and boom! A cracked nut.” She grins up at him like she’s performed magic right before his eyes.

“Pretty cool,” he acquiesces. “Gonna add it to your hoard?”

Sloan hums thoughtfully. “Maybe,” she says, but she pockets the thing and they both know she’ll be making a beeline for her little hovel as soon as they reach Diamond City. It’s basically a small house filled to the brim with pre-war stuff that she’s found on her travels—old dresses and shoes, knick-knacks like the nutcracker, card decks, license plates, poker chips, pre-war money—things like that that don’t really have any use anymore, but that she says remind her of the time she came from.

“My mother always warned me not to stick my fingers in its mouth,” Sloan says as they dust themselves off and start back down the road. “She said I would be careless and crush them by accident.”

“Did that ever happen?”

“Once,” Sloan says. “On Christmas Eve, I was messing around with ours—which was a lot bigger than this one, by the way—and I ended up smashing its teeth closed on my thumb.” She holds up her right hand and wiggles her thumb in the air.

“Ouch.” MacCready winces in sympathy.

“Yeah, it hurt like a bitch. Oops, sorry! Like a . . . um . . . well, it hurt a lot.”

MacCready rolls his eyes. No matter how many times he’s tried to convince Sloan to do otherwise, she insists that forcing herself to curse less will help him do the same. “After all, it’s only fair that we play by the same rules,” she’d said at the time. “It’s only fair that one of us gets to have some fun,” he’d replied, but Sloan had been a lawyer before the war, and that meant she won that argument. And most of the arguments they’ve had after that. And before that. And most of their arguments in general.

“Anyway, I don’t need to pretend that this one’s a toy soldier, ’cause now I’ve got a real one,” Sloan says with a laugh.

“You mean the one I gave you?” MacCready says, incredulous. It’s been a good two weeks since he gave Lucy’s soldier to her, and it’s surprising that she’s kept it this long.

“Yeah, of course,” Sloan says, and pulls something out of a pouch in her belt. Sure enough, it’s Lucy’s little green soldier.

“You kept it,” MacCready says, a little nonplussed. More than that, she kept it _on her person_.

“You gave it to me, of course I kept it,” Sloan says, as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world.

“It’s just a trinket,” MacCready says. “You didn’t have to.”

“It’s a trinket Lucy made for you!” says Sloan, and MacCready knows he should be bristling at hearing her name said aloud by someone else, but he doesn’t. “It obviously means a lot to you, and you gave it to me. As a gift. I couldn’t just go off and trade it in for a few caps, now could I?”

Well, she _could_ have, but MacCready doesn’t want to press the issue. “I’m just . . . surprised, is all. Didn’t expect you to care so much.”

“Oh, Mac, of course I care,” Sloan says, stopping and turning to face him. She looks so damn genuine when she smiles, and it’s endearing. She puts a hand on his shoulder (she’s only a couple inches shorter than him, which MacCready is perpetually embarrassed about) and says, “You mean a lot to me.”

Oh. _Oh._ “Uh—you, uh, you mean a lot to me too.”

“Yeah,” says Sloan, “you’re a really good friend.”

“Oh!” Oh. “Oh, yeah, of course.” He tries not to sound disappointed. After all, he already knew he didn’t stand much of a chance. Sloan needs time. Time, and space. His little crush shouldn’t be getting in the way of her moving on from the hardships she’s still dealing with. How selfish is he, that he’d try to put himself in the middle of that? “You’re a good friend, too, Boss.”

If Sloan’s smile is a little less bright than before, he convinces himself he’s imagining things. She puts her arm down and says, with a voice that speaks of infinite patience, “Mac, for the last time, you can call me Sloan.”

* * *

The rest of the journey to Fenway Park (Sloan refuses to call it Diamond City, because it’s not Diamond City, it’s Fenway Park, damn it) is spent in silence, which is a shame, because there is nothing duller than a long trip without conversation. Sloan is disappointed, sure, that MacCready didn’t take the opening she gave him, but if he just wants to be friends, then there’s not much she can do. What bothers her is the fact that MacCready, who usually has plenty of quips and jabs to lend on the long road to their destination, has mysteriously clammed up. At first, she’s afraid she’s overstepped her bounds, but when they reach Fenway Park, MacCready seems amiable enough. He tells her he’s going to one of the vendors to see if he can get any caps out of the ammo they found earlier that neither of them can use. She wishes him luck, and he gives her one of those small smiles of his that soften his eyes and make her want to kiss it right off his face, before wandering off. So she figures they’re okay.

Friends. She can manage that, can’t she? Just friends.

After all, you can love your friend, can’t you? Sloan’s had plenty of friends before . . . before she came here whom she loved very much. She loves Nick, and Piper, and Hancock, all as friends. Loving MacCready in the same way might not be too bad.

Only there’s the whole kissing thing. And the part where she wants to tear his clothes off and get him into a bed as soon as possible.

But she can ignore all that. It can’t be that difficult. She’ll be fine.

And if she steals a glance at MacCready’s ass as he walks away, well, it certainly wasn’t her _intention_ to do so.

Sloan forces herself to turn away and heads over to the house affectionately dubbed Home Plate by the locals, a rickety tin can that is in perpetual danger of falling apart. She had bought it a few months ago with the intention of having somewhere safe to hole up in when she passes through there, which she does a lot, but it ended up becoming more of a storage space for all of her findings that remind her of the past. Since then, she’s dressed it up to look as much like a pre-war home as possible, a reminder of her old life. She doesn’t usually spend the night in Fenway Park, but she’ll stop by about once a week to drop off all the goodies she’s found.

Once she’s done all that (taking care to place the nutcracker on a desk near the door, next to a stuffed monkey doll she’d found a few weeks ago in a garbage heap), she whistles for Dogmeat and goes off to find wherever MacCready has wandered off to. It’s a gorgeous day, and she doesn’t want to lose the few hours of daylight that are left.

Today, she feels like running the bases in Fenway Park. Again. For maybe the fifth time, but who’s counting? And anybody running bases needs a top-notch announcer to encourage them.

“Mac!” she calls out when she spies him at a vendor, pocketing some caps. Good; he’s managed to sell the ammo. He turns around and waves, making his way over to her.

“I’m going to run the bases again,” Sloan says, matching his stride once he reaches her, leading them in the direction of the diamond. “You’re going to have to do the announcer voice.”

MacCready pulls a face and groans, but Sloan can see right through him and knows that he secretly doesn’t mind. He hasn’t minded since she first showed him how to do it a couple of weeks back, and although he was a bit shaky at first, he’s gotten the hang of it quickly. Still, he keeps up his charade of reluctantly humoring Sloan, and she supposes a guy who’s barely five foot eight with his shoes on has to maintain his pride _somehow_.

As Sloan approaches home plate, she dons her Red Sox cap and readies the baseball bat she keeps cinched to her belt. Dogmeat at his heels, MacCready stands back near the stands and clears his throat. Sloan hears him take a deep breath behind her, and yell—“Aaaaand it’s the pitch!”

Sloan swings hard at an imaginary baseball, shouting “CRACK!” to make sure MacCready knows it’s a good hit, and heads off towards first base, boots digging into the sand and kicking up dust.

“It’s out of the park, folks, out! Of! The! Park!” _God,_ Sloan thinks as her foot leaves first base, _Mac really doesn’t know a thing about baseball_ — “Aaaaand Sloan’s off of first base, sheeeee’s rounding second—” Sloan’s boot touches the hard ceramic on second base, hair flying behind her wildly, her lungs burning, dust in her nose— “Aaaaand she’s coming up on third, the bases are loaded but nothing can stop her! Talk about a human dynamo, folks, she’s not slowing down—” Sloan can practically hear the crowds cheering, she’s going to make it, she’s going to get a home run and she is un-fucking-stoppable, and she can’t hear the pounding in her chest beneath the sweet crunch of her boot slamming down on third base— “Aaaaaand she’s approaching home, folks, it’s gonna be—” She lets her momentum carry her as she sticks out her left leg and starts to slide— “It’s gonna be—” The dust is everywhere, in her face, her hair, her boots— “It’s gonna be a—!” Her boot sits home plate at a good thirty miles an hour, the sound echoing through the stands, the crowds are on their feet— “HOOOOOOME RUUUUUUN!”

Sloan lies on her back in the dirt for a few moments, catching her breath. She sneezes, once, clearing the dust from her nose. Eventually, the sun above her is eclipsed by MacCready’s cap, and he grins bemusedly down at her. She can see the spaces in his mouth where he’s missing two of his bottom teeth, and the chipped canine on the top. He told her once he lost them in a bar fight while he was running with the Gunners, which she pretends to believe.

“How was that?” MacCready asks.

Sloan nods, not attempting to get up. Dogmeat nuzzles at her forehead. “Good. Real good. Thank you for the assistance.”

“Everyone stared at us.”

“Good. You’re a good announcer. More people should know about that.”

“Thanks. You wanna get up now?”

“Give me a minute.”

Ten minutes later they’re back on the road, headed to the Commons, with Sloan’s hair a rat’s nest but with her clothes significantly less covered in dust. The sun’s beginning to go down, coloring the sand a deep orange-red. Sloan’s feet hurt and Dogmeat is panting, and even though he’s too proud to say anything, MacCready’s pace is starting to wane. They’re all feeling the aches of travel, but the Commons are just a couple miles away, and after that Goodneighbor, with its promise of beds, beer, and a roof over their heads, is only another half hour’s worth of walking.

The walk is not nearly as quiet as before—they make small talk like they always do, ribbing the other in a careless fashion that comes easily to two friends who have spent long hours with each other before. _Friends,_ Sloan reminds herself.

It’s not like she doesn’t understand MacCready’s lack of interest. Far from it; he lost his wife a relatively short time ago, and if anyone can relate to that, she can. She’s still hurting about Tommy, and she probably always will. It’s been hard for her, these past six months or so, with Shaun and everything else, and trying to make peace with the fact that everything she had before is gone now. Spending her days with her newfound friends to avoid thinking about the ones she’s lost, dealing with basic day-to-day survival, trying to find a place where she fits in this world—it’s been rough, to say the least.

But now Sloan’s starting to think that, just maybe, things are starting to look up. Lately, she’s been feeling more at home in the Wasteland, in the settlements she frequents. She’s noticed that she fiddles with her wedding ring a lot less often, too. She suspects that meeting MacCready was part of that; he’s been a good friend to her these past few months, and whether or not her feelings for him come into play, she values him as an ally and as a friend.

She misses Tommy like hell, and every day she wakes up wishing he was there to take her in his arms and promise her pancakes in a few minutes. But there’s a time in your life, Sloan figures, when you’ve got to move on.

Maybe MacCready just hasn’t reached that time yet, and she’s alright with that. She’s a patient woman, and she’ll wait as long as she needs to. She’s not going to push it.

She might end up pushing it, though.

By the time their little trio reaches the Commons, the sun has almost set and everyone wants to stop for a rest. MacCready sits up against a crumbling section of wall and takes out some of their ration of jerky, offering some up to Dogmeat, who eagerly accepts.

Sloan’s going to join them in a second, but first she wants to do what she always does when she visits the Commons—have a look at the reflecting pool. She wanders a little ways off of the main road, towards the small, radiation-laden pond that used to be one of her favorite spots in the city as a kid. She stares at it wistfully from a few feet away, wishing she could get a little closer to it and look down at her reflection, like she used to be able to do. The pond’s no longer clear enough to reflect anything other than the vague red color of the sky.

A sudden memory comes to her—herself as a little girl, making faces at herself in the pool, trying to screw up her face into the craziest of grimaces possible. Her mother had told her to stop, and then, in a fit of rebellion, little Sloan had thrown a pebble into the pool, causing hundreds of ripples all throughout the water, ruining the reflection.

She laughs at the memory, and wonders if any tourists had been pissed off about what she’d done that day. She hopes so.

Although, really, what did it matter? That had all happened over two hundred years ago.

Sloan’s smile dissipates, and she sighs at the unwelcome thought. Memories are always bittersweet, these days—even funny ones like the nutcracker story leave her melancholy for a few moments afterward. She sticks her hands in her jacket pockets and turns back to join MacCready and Dogmeat.

“What’s this?” Sloan says aloud, startled when her fingers catch on something in her pocket. She pulls it out—it’s a stray cap, Nuka-Cola red, from who knows when. She turns it over and over again in her fingers, debating with herself.

Then, because Sloan hasn’t quite given up being a childish little rebel yet, she hurls the cap into the pond.

It makes a less-than-satisfying little _sploosh_ in the water, but the ripples it causes are more than enough for Sloan. Grinning triumphantly, she saunters back over to claim her portion of jerky.

“Where’d you wander off to?” MacCready says as she plops herself down against the wall. She sticks her hand out and he faux-reluctantly hands her a piece of jerky.

“Just that pond over there,” she says, jerking her hand vaguely in its direction. “It used to be a place I visited a lot as a kid. You’re going to hate me for this, but I threw a cap in. Just to be a rebel.”

MacCready narrows his eyes from beneath his cap. Sloan wishes he’d take the thing off more often—she’s certain his hat-hair must be legendary. “Now I’m conflicted, because I like the whole rebellion thing, but that’s a waste of a cap and you know it.”

“Oh, Mac, come on,” Sloan says, “even you can’t be that stingy. It was one cap! _You_ were the one who gave me back the two hundred I gave you. If you weren’t prepared to deal with how I was going to use them, you should’ve kept your share.”

MacCready sighs, long-suffering, but she can see that he’s smiling, all soft. Her favorite kind.

“Can’t ever win an argument with y—” MacCready starts to say, but he’s interrupted by a deep rumbling sound that startles the both of them and causes Dogmeat to growl and flatten his ears to his head. The ground starts to vibrate, the rumbling growing in volume, and then after a few moments, everything stops.

Sloan lets out a breath she didn’t know she’d been holding. “What in the world was—”

Quick as anything, MacCready clamps his hand over Sloan’s mouth, bringing a finger to his lips. _Shhh._ Very, very slowly, MacCready rises up to a crouch and peers over the edge of the wall behind them, in the—

 _In the direction of the pond,_ Sloan realizes.

Almost immediately, MacCready ducks back down behind the wall, only this time he tugs Sloan down with him so that they’re lying almost flat in the dirt.

 _“Do not make a sound,”_ MacCready whispers so quietly into her ear she almost doesn’t hear him. She nods, tamping down the urge to get up and run. Whatever it was MacCready saw, it’s probably very, very close and very, very dangerous.

Sure enough, not a second later a deafening roar pierces the once-calm evening air, and Sloan’s not an expert on these sorts of things but the sound definitely originates from no more than a few yards behind their sad excuse of a cover. The rumbling starts again, but this time it’s rhythmic—one shake of the earth, a pause, and then another shake, again and again.

It’s _walking around_.

Sloan’s view is mostly confined to the square foot of dirt directly in front of her face, so she just prays that the giant whatever-the-hell-it-is isn’t heading in their direction, and that Dogmeat’s had the sense to hide as well. The giant footsteps don’t seem to be getting any closer or further away; she suspects the thing’s probably walking in a direction parallel to their hiding spot, which means it doesn’t see them, which is a bit of good news. The question is, how long can their luck hold out?

Sloan resigns herself to the fact that there’s really nothing they can do but keep still and silent. She hates not being able to take action, but she’s smart enough to realize when something’s a little too big to take head-on.

After a few minutes of her heart leaping anxiously at the sound of each massive step, the rumbling begins to fade, and then stops. Still, neither Sloan nor MacCready move an inch; there’s no telling what the sudden silence could mean. But after several minutes of nothing, Sloan starts to come back to herself a bit. With her heart no longer threatening to pound itself out of her chest, she takes stock of the fact that MacCready’s hand is still over her mouth, dry and gritty and warm. And they’re both lying in the dirt practically on top of each other, MacCready’s arm wound protectively around her waist. She turns her head slightly, trying to meet his eyes, and he must notice the same thing she does because he abruptly removes his hand so she can turn to face him.

He’s a bit flushed, eyes wide, though whether it’s from the fright or the compromising position they’re in is anybody’s guess. She decides not to address it quite yet, and instead mouths to him, _Do you think it’s gone?_

MacCready shakes himself a bit, and then slowly, carefully sits up to peer over the wall again. He ducks back down and nods, grinning triumphantly. “Gone,” he says.

Sloan grins right back, relieved, all the tension draining out of her. She leans back against the wall, spent by the stress. A quick glance around the square reveals that Dogmeat, ever sensible, has made himself scarce, and will probably come back when he realizes everything’s okay. “Whew,” she says, removing her baseball cap to run a hand through her sweaty hair. “What _was_ that thing, anyway?”

“People call it the Swan,” MacCready says. “I’ve been warned about it before by people who’ve had a run-in with it around this area. I guess it makes its home in the pond and doesn’t like guests. Who knew the real estate out here was so valuable?”

Sloan punches him lightly in the arm for the bad joke. “I’m just glad we got out of that one alive.”

“Serves you right for wasting a cap,” MacCready retorts, but she can tell he’s not actually annoyed; he’s still grinning from ear to ear. “I bet it came out of the pond because you tossed one in.”

Sloan looks at the ground sheepishly when she realizes MacCready is probably right. Maybe the whole rebellion thing should be reserved to stealing from bad guys and running the bases at Fenway Park. “Yeah, sorry about that.”

“Hey, we got out okay, didn’t we?” MacCready says, nudging her shoulder playfully. “Just don’t do it ag—”

Something slams down on the wall right above their heads with an almighty _BOOM_ , and very rapidly Sloan’s immediate situation gets a whole lot more interesting.

* * *

This is why MacCready is a sniper.

Getting nearly brained—not to mention _sliced in half_ —by a hulking super mutant that lives in a pond doesn’t happen to you when you’re crouched behind a pile of rocks several yards away, staring at the thing through a scope and making sure it keeps its attention on somebody else. You never end up rolling underneath the crumbling remains of a wall for cover as a behemoth straight from hell steps right over your prone body as you struggle to get a grip on your woefully inadequate pistol.

You never end up shooting at its legs from the ground to absolutely no effect while your traveling companion who you would very much like not to die scrambles backwards away from it as it comes after her, firing shot after shot from her also woefully inadequate pistols.

“Boss!” MacCready yells, as the Swan slams down one of its grotesque fists worryingly close to Sloan’s face. She rolls away from it, aiming a pistol as she goes, and manages to hit one of its wrists. The Swan roars in pain, and Sloan gets a free moment to scramble to her feet and put a few yards’ distance between herself and the mutant.

As MacCready watches this, he reloads his pistol and gets to his feet, firing a few more rounds into the Swan’s back, to very little effect. Without a good shot at its face or chest, the bullets might as well be stinging flies to the thing.

He waves to Sloan while the mutant’s still distracted by its wound, signaling to her that he’s going to use his rifle. She nods and gives him a thumbs up.

Satisfied that Sloan will distract the Swan long enough for him to get a clear shot, he pulls out his sniper rifle and sets it up in the split-open section of the wall. He lies down on his stomach and peers through the scope, feeling adrenaline spike through his veins as he carefully adjusts the barrel. Some people get their kicks going into battle guns blazing, but personally, MacCready vastly prefers the precision and accuracy of a carefully angled single shot. One hit, one guy. Mutant. Whatever.

The creature is on the move again, but it’s got a pretty big head and MacCready’s a damn good shot, if he does say so himself. As he scans up the thing’s back and gets the back of its head in the view of the scope, he places his finger carefully on the trigger.

Back of the neck, he decides. Even giant, mindless super mutants have spinal cords.

He stills his hand and pulls the trigger.

Through the scope, he can see the blood splatter all over the back of its head. Kind of gross, but it’s satisfying to see a tough enemy go down.

He rises to his knees, ready to pack away the sniper rifle and check to see if Sloan needs a stimpak, when he hears another rumble.

He looks up so fast he’s sure he almost gives himself whiplash. The Swan hasn’t fallen over. It’s not dead. There’s a hole in the back of its head, but it’s still walking around. Steadily, at almost the same pace as before, it’s heading towards the main road.

MacCready slowly turns his head to follow its path, and his stomach drops.

Sloan is lying a few feet from the asphalt, her left leg bloody. She’s digging through her backpack, probably trying to find a stimpak. Whether the Swan had grazed her while she was busy distracting it or she was injured some other way, MacCready doesn’t know. He does know that Sloan isn’t going to be able to get up anytime soon, and that the Swan is approaching her fast.

“Boss!” he cries in warning, scrambling to his feet and drawing his pistol again. She doesn’t respond. Instead, she pulls something big out of her bag.

MacCready almost cheers. Sloan’s brought a Fat Man with her on this particular trip, because she is wonderful and a genius. “Boss!” he calls again, starting to head over to her, keeping one eye on the mutant as it comes closer. It’s only about ten yards away from her now. “Throw it to me, I’ll lure it away and then launch a big one at it!”

But Sloan is shaking her head. “It got me in the leg when I tried to lure it off, who knows what it’ll do to you?” she yells across to him.

“I’ll be fine!” MacCready says, the hope in his chest starting to die a little bit. If Sloan fires a nuke, even a small one, from that distance . . . “Boss, you’ll get hurt if you fire from there!”

Sloan readies the Fat Man over one shoulder and aims. “Mac, you need to get back, I can’t wait any longer.”

He shakes his head, dread building in the pit of his stomach. “Sloan, don’t—”

“Mac, get down!” she cries, and her hand slams on the trigger.

“SLOAN!!”

He’s thrown to the ground almost immediately by the force of the blast. The explosion is incredible; he’s seen Sloan fire the Fat Man before but he’s never been this close. As his face hits the dirt, he can feel the heat of the explosion in the air and smell the burning flesh of the Swan.

He desperately hopes it’s the Swan’s.

He struggles to his feet and, disoriented, tries to find a landmark through the dust and smoke that’s filling the air. He spots the silhouette of the Swan’s hulking mass, horizontal this time, thank God, flames dancing across its carcass.

He swings his gaze to the right, towards the road, and sees another shadowed figure, much smaller, and also horizontal.

“Sloan!” he cries, making his way through the rubble, stumbling as he goes. He’s by her side in a moment, and close up, he can see that the blast hit her a lot worse than him. The right side of her body, her dominant side that she used to hoist the Fat Man, is covered in burns, and her other side isn’t much better. Her eyes are closed, and it doesn’t look like she’s breathing.

“. . . Sloan?” MacCready says, softer this time. Despite the lingering heat in the air, he suddenly feels very cold. His thoughts come in time with his rapid heartbeat: _Please don’t be dead, don’t be dead, not you, not you._ Carefully, he takes her wrist and feels for a pulse, hands shaking.

 _Oh thank God._ There’s a pulse. It’s faint, but it’s there. MacCready pulls over Sloan’s bag and starts hunting for stimpaks. He knows he doesn’t need any himself, so he can use all of them on her, and if he bandages her leg to stop the blood flow then the medicine can work to heal her burns instead.

He finds some clean bandages first, and ties them tight around Sloan’s leg, around and around until the spots of blood don’t seep through the fabric. Then he turns back to the bag for the stimpaks.

Except he only finds one. One lonely stimpak, which Sloan must have thrown into her backpack at the last minute before they left that morning, thinking the trip would be an easy one. Or maybe she didn’t bring more because she wanted to make room for the Fat Man. Whatever the case, one injection isn’t going to be enough to bring Sloan back from third degree burns. He’s going to have to get her to a doctor in a settlement, and fast, or else—

He doesn’t want to think about the “or else.”

He forces himself to calm down. He takes a deep breath, and clenches his hands so they stop shaking. He’s got to keep it together, or Sloan’s going to die. He repeats that, over and over, in his head, as he injects her with the stimpak, retrieves his rifle and the Fat Man, pulls on Sloan’s backpack, and carefully hoists her into his arms: _If you don’t keep it together, Sloan’s going to die._

As MacCready hits the main road, headed towards Goodneighbor, the closest settlement he knows of with someone who might be able to help, he sees Dogmeat come sprinting out of the brush. He whines when he sees his unconscious master, but MacCready reassures him: “She’s gonna be alright, got that, Dogmeat? We’re gonna get her all patched up and she’ll be fine. She’ll be fine.” He says it until he almost makes himself believe it.

Dogmeat stays right by MacCready’s side the whole time, and he’s sure if the dog was able, he’d offer to carry Sloan, too. As it is, MacCready barely minds the added weight, because he can feel Sloan’s weakened heartbeat against his arm and chest, and that means she’s still alive. All that matters now is that she’s still alive.

The sun is just below the horizon by the time he reaches Goodneighbor, and he can’t have been walking for more than thirty minutes but it feels like hours. He practically sprints into Hotel Rexford, Dogmeat barging through the doors ahead of him and barking up a storm to announce their arrival.

The next few minutes are a blur; a man who calls himself a doctor (MacCready will take what he can get at this point) appears and the three of them are rushed into a room in the hotel they reserve for medical emergencies, where Sloan is laid out on a bed and MacCready is asked a lot of questions and then promptly kicked out, sent to sit out in the lobby until the doctor has news for him.

That’s when the waiting starts.

As a kid, MacCready had never been patient. You don’t get to be mayor of an entire underground village of children by taking time to think things through and consider all the options. You made a snap decision and you stuck with it, or you were out the door. So waiting around for things to happen instead of making things happen has never been MacCready’s strong point.

Waiting has never been more painful for him than it is over the next three hours. He wrings his hands, paces the lobby, takes his hat off and puts it back on repeatedly. Every time he hears a door creak open, he jumps to attention, expecting the doctor to come out and tell him that Sloan’s going to be okay. Or that Sloan is dead. The thought of this second possibility always leaves him with his face in his hands, trying to keep himself from falling apart in the middle of the hotel lobby.

The worst part is that he _knows_ it’s a possibility. Before he lost Lucy he figured that the death of a loved one was something that happened to other people. Now he knows better. He knows exactly how lucky he was to have Lucy for the time he did, and how lucky he is that Duncan is still alive and healthy. How lucky he is to have met Sloan, and to have the privilege of traveling with her for all this time and earning her trust and friendship.

And now he may be about to lose her. The thought hurts about as much as a bullet wound.

After MacCready’s been waiting about an hour, he’s joined by Hancock, who storms into the building looking like he’s rearing for a fight, demanding to know why it took so damn long to inform him that his friend may be dying somewhere in his own damn town, goddammit. It takes a few minutes for MacCready and the others in the lobby to calm him down, and when the fuss is over Hancock is sitting in a chair next to MacCready, head bowed and shoulders tense, looking just about as anxious as MacCready feels.

They don’t talk, because while Hancock is a good friend and normally they have plenty to say to each other, MacCready doesn’t much feel like talking right now, and he’s willing to bet Hancock doesn’t, either. Besides, there isn’t much to say except for the obvious, which goes without saying: _Please let Sloan be okay._

Two hours later, MacCready hears the creak of a door, but he’s too spent to react. Halfheartedly, he glances over at the source of the noise, and immediately stands, almost knocking the chair over. It’s the doctor, pulling his gloves off and too slowly wandering over to them.

MacCready says “Is she okay?” the same time as Hancock says “How is she?”, and if Hancock looks like he’s about to start shaking the doctor by his lapels, MacCready hates to think how he looks right now.

The doctor—calmly and _too damn slowly_ —explains to them that Sloan is alive, healing, and stable. Currently, she’s sleeping, and will likely remain asleep for the next few days while the worst of the burns heal. Her leg is not infected, and she should be able to walk normally within a week’s time. The burns will scar, but not heavily, and the worst of them will be on her torso, where the blast hit her the hardest. She’s been given RadAway to help with the potential risk of radiation from the nuke, and stimpaks to help with her leg and the burns.

The most important thing about all of this is that Sloan is going to be okay. She’s alive and she’s _going to be okay_.

Hancock is demanding to see her (“I’m her friend, dammit, at least let me peek in through the door!”), but MacCready just sits back down in the chair and puts his face in his hands. He doesn’t know if he’ll be able to live it down if he lets all the other people in the lobby see him cry.

* * *

By the time Sloan wakes up for real, without Med-X keeping her under, she sort of wishes she _had_ died in the explosion.

Every part of her body aches. At least that’s what it feels like—her leg hurts the most, the gash in it still in the process of healing, but her _skin_ hurts, too. The burns aren’t going to last, she’s told, and neither will the scars, but until then her arms and torso itch like crazy, and she can’t even scratch them because of the bandages they’ve been wrapped in.

Once she’s taken stock of her surroundings (the awful wallpaper is a sure sign she’s still in the Rexford’s emergency room), she sees that Dogmeat is lying next to the bed, head in his paws. He jumps up and barks with elation when she calls out his name for the first time in what must be days, but other than that, the small hotel room is empty. It takes a few minutes to get someone’s attention, but after a few exceptionally loud hollers the doctor takes notice and comes in to check on her. He gives her a look-over and declares that she’s allowed to have visitors and be conscious for most of the time, which is always a treat.

She asks if MacCready is around, to which the doctor wryly replies, “Miss, if he wasn’t around, I’d assume he’d gone off somewhere with you,” before gathering up his things and exiting the room.

Sloan doesn’t quite know what to make of that, but she doesn’t get a chance to think about it too much before MacCready himself comes into the room.

“Sloan!” he says in greeting (when did he start calling her by her name?), shutting the door behind him and coming over to the small wooden chair beside the bed. He spins the chair around and sits on it backwards, hands folded under his chin, the casual gesture ruined by the huge grin plastered to his face. “The doc told me you finally woke up, and good thing too, it’s started to get boring around here.”

Sloan laughs. “Hey, Mac,” she says, shimmying up a little higher on the pillows so she can look him in the eye. She frowns slightly when she does; no offense to the man, but up close, MacCready doesn’t look so good. Despite his wide grin, there are bags under his eyes, and his stubble has gotten wilder since the last time she saw him. And it takes her a moment more to realize it, but MacCready’s not wearing his hat.

She’s seen him without it before—when you’re traveling with someone it’s hard to avoid that kind of thing—but never in public, especially in a place like the Rexford, where anyone could see him. She’s started to figure out, over the months they’ve known each other, that MacCready uses the hat like another piece of armor. It makes it easy for him to hide his eyes under the brim, his face in shadow. To block himself off from the world when he feels he needs to. Sloan doesn’t like to make presumptions, but she’s willing to bet a sizable amount of caps that without it, MacCready starts to feel vulnerable. And now the hat is nowhere to be seen.

She wants to ask about it, but she doesn’t. Instead, she says, “So what’d I miss while I was out?”

He tells her, listing off the facts with minimal flair. She was unconscious and in danger of dying, and there was only one stimpak so he carried her to Goodneighbor, and the doctor says she shouldn’t try to walk for a few more days—

“You carried me all the way to Goodneighbor from the Commons?” Sloan interrupts, shocked. That stretch isn’t a hike by any means, but it’s no leisurely stroll either, and that’s when you’re not carrying a dead weight in your arms. She’d figured MacCready had called for help and someone else had brought her here, on a brahmin or somesuch.

“Well, yeah,” MacCready says, as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world.

Sloan doesn’t know what else to say to that except, “Thank you.”

He waves it away, as though what he did was no more trouble to him than dropping off a library book. “It was the least I could do. You’ve saved my sorry a— _ugh_. You’ve saved me more times than I can count, so I figured I owed you one somewhere in there.” All of a sudden, his voice grows serious, and he looks her straight in the eye. “And I . . . I mean, I didn’t want you to die, Sloan.” He smiles at her, a small, sad thing. “I’m real glad you didn’t.”

Sloan wishes she could kiss him. She swallows down the urge and says, “Same here, believe me.”

“Oh, and there’s one more thing.” Now MacCready looks sheepish. She raises an eyebrow, already suspecting this isn’t something she’s going to like. “We’re, uh, going to have to stay here for a while while you recover. Doctor’s orders. You’re only gonna be bedridden for a couple more days, so when you can walk again they’re gonna kick you out of this room so they can use it for other sick people.”

She nods. That, at least, is completely understandable.

“That’s where the problem comes in. I’ve already paid for the room I’m staying in now, and just this morning I paid the doctor, and, well . . .”

Sloan interrupts him with a sigh. “And now we’re out of caps.” Honestly, she should have seen it coming. Medical supplies aren’t cheap in the Wasteland, and the two of them aren’t rich by any means. They’ve scraped along alright in the past, looting raiders and doing merc jobs on the side, but it seems their luck has finally run out.

MacCready nods despondently. “Just about. Luckily I paid for the hotel room up front, so we’ve got that for another week.” He ducks his head down, not meeting her eyes. “Only thing is, we’ve only got the one, so we’re gonna have to, um . . . share it.”

Sloan’s first reaction is to groan, which isn’t fair at all, because it’s not MacCready’s fault she has a massive crush she’s trying to tamp down that’s only going to get worse if they’re in close quarters for a long period of time. (She feels as though it’s his fault a little bit, but it’s still unfair to blame him.) “Well,” she says, trying not to let her trepidation show, “if it’s our only option, I guess we’ll just have to make do.”

MacCready nods, but he looks about as apprehensive as Sloan feels. “I guess so.”

“It won’t be that bad,” Sloan says. _Not for you, anyway._ “We’ve camped out together in the Wasteland before. At least this time there’ll be a roof over our heads. And, you know, less deathclaws.”

“Sure,” says MacCready, who doesn’t look sure at all. “It’ll be fine.”

Sloan nods in a way she prays is convincing. “Perfectly fine.”

“Yeah, of course.”

“Good.”

“Alright.”

 _Fuck,_ thinks Sloan.

Three days later, thanks to the stimpaks, she’s able to walk at almost her normal gait, so the doctor officially releases her from care with instructions to “take it easy,” which means she has to stay in bed seventy percent of the time instead of ninety. She even gets to take the bandages off her arms. So she gathers her belongings (and Dogmeat, who has unwaveringly stayed by her side this whole time, the angel) and moves upstairs to the room they’re renting with the last of their caps.

A room that only has one bed, apparently.

“I’ll take the floor,” MacCready says even before Sloan puts her backpack down. Sure enough, he’s already got a small mattress and blanket set up at the foot of the bed, his sniper rifle lying on top of it, as though he’s expecting a fight to break out right outside the window.

“Thanks, Mac,” she says, genuinely relieved that they won’t be sharing a bed. That would have gotten very awkward very fast. Also, her torso is still bandaged, and she doesn’t exactly love the idea of sleeping with the hard floor at her back.

As Dogmeat makes himself comfortable on the rug near the door, Sloan sets her bag down and sits on the bed, testing the mattress. Definitely softer than the floor, that’s for certain, and it beats sleeping on the ground outside. Absentmindedly, she twists her wedding ring around her finger, and then, more deliberately, reaches into her breast pocket and pulls out Tommy’s ring. She doesn’t do that often, look at his ring instead of hers, because it reminds her that he doesn’t need it anymore. A memory flashes through her head: Tommy on one knee, alone in their kitchen, Sloan’s hand reaching for a towel as she turns half away from the sink, frozen in place as she stares down at him, and he asks if she’d like to marry him.

Tears prick at her eyes and she hurriedly puts the ring away. “Don’t know why I do this to myself,” she mumbles aloud.

“What was that?” She turns to see MacCready sitting up against the side of the bed to her right, in the process of cleaning his rifle. He glances up at her, offering a small smile. To Sloan’s dismay, he still looks like he hasn’t had a decent night’s sleep in the last few days.

“It’s nothing,” says Sloan, slipping the ring back into her pocket. “Only . . . I was thinking, once I’ve healed up, we should stop by the house in Sanctuary. The old one,” she clarifies. “I’ve got some caps and other valuables holed up in there, we could sell them in town and make some money.”

MacCready doesn’t look up from his rifle, but he groans a bit in protest. “Do we really have to go to Sanctuary? That place is deader than a downed feral.”

Sloan grins, and lets the impending argument clear her mind of old memories. If there’s anything she loves more than the past, it’s arguing, and it’s always fun to argue with MacCready because he’s stubborn as a brick and doesn’t let her off easy. “And here I thought you’d never pass up an opportunity to make some caps, Mac,” she says, drawing a leg up onto the bed to let herself get comfortable. “Are you honestly more bored by Sanctuary than you are upset about being broke?”

“There’s other ways to make caps, you know,” Mac says, gesturing to the rifle. “More exciting ways. Ways that involve shooting things and not bartering with some vendor who wouldn’t know a scope from a . . . um . . .” He trails off and chews at his lip, brows furrowed.

“A scone?” Sloan offers, and they both make a face simultaneously. “Not good.”

“Not good,” MacCready agrees, “but thanks for trying. Anyway, you get my point.”

“Alright,” Sloan says, letting herself go into lawyer-mode, “let’s say we take your idea, and find a job after this whole mess is over. We might make a hundred, hundred-fifty caps, depending. With both of us out there, it’ll probably take about three days to find the guy and take him out.”

“Where are you getting all these numbers from?” MacCready mutters.

“Averages. I’ve got a chart I could show you.”

“Please don’t.”

“Suit yourself. Anyway, two hundred isn’t even enough to keep us alive for a week, let alone one hundred. We need something immediate or nearly so, and Sanctuary is less than a day’s walk away.” She nods decisively. “So you can see, there’s only one real option.”

MacCready sighs, but he nods in acquiescence. “Fine. Sanctuary it is. But if I don’t get to use this thing”—he pats the rifle—“at least once on the way over there, I’m holding you personally responsible.”

Sloan laughs for what she realizes is the first time that day. “That, I can deal with.”

* * *

MacCready is beginning to feel like he deserves a medal for how much he is successfully managing not to completely lose it.

The first two days after the accident are bad enough, with Sloan unconscious for most of the time and the doctor not letting him see her, but it only gets worse when he _is_ allowed to see her, lying in a bed and covered in bandages and complexion paler than normal. She looks small, and frail, words he’s never thought to use to describe her before, and it hits him once again that Sloan could very easily have died in that explosion, and that it’s almost what he’d call a miracle that she didn’t, and he has to grin and crack a joke to stop himself from crying all over again.

What he wants to do when he sits down at her bedside is hug her tight as he can and tell her how thankful he is that she hasn’t ended up like Lucy, that he doesn’t have to be alone again, that against all odds she’s still in his life. He wants to tell her that he loves her, because he almost lost his chance two days ago and he wants desperately to say something while he still can.

He keeps silent, though, for her sake. Sloan has made it very clear that she only sees him as a friend, and he’s alright with that. Honestly, he is, because he’d rather be her friend than risk driving her away by saying something stupid like “I know you’re still getting over the untimely death of your husband and almost died yourself just the other day, but hey, I’m available.” He isn’t going to push it.

Except that’s going to be very difficult, because now they’re going to be living in the same space for the better part of a week, and MacCready has to pretend like he doesn’t mind. Well, he doesn’t _mind_ , because being with Sloan is great, but it also makes him want to tell her everything he’s resolved not to tell her.

The fact is, MacCready can’t help but feel that he’s gotten a second chance to figure things out with Sloan. Despite everything in his brain screaming at him not to screw everything up, something in his gut is telling him to go for it. He smothers it down as best he can, but he has moments of weakness.

Like on the second night in their shared room, for one.

It gets cold in the Wasteland at night. This is something MacCready has known for his entire life, and it’s something that’s so ingrained in his mind he can’t remember a time when he didn’t take it into consideration. He packs heavy blankets and wears his boots when he sleeps outside, and normally, it all works out fine.

Except sometimes, it gets _really freaking cold_ in the Wasteland at night. And when that happens, a single blanket on a ratty mattress in a drafty hotel room isn’t enough to keep you warm.

MacCready has been tossing and turning all night, trying to find some small pocket of warmth in the blanket he’s cocooned himself in, to no avail. He’s never been more annoyed at himself for choosing to wear fingerless gloves, sniper accuracy be damned. And why on earth did he ever think repurposing a coat with only one sleeve was a good idea?

He’s shifting around so much he almost doesn’t hear the quiet “Hmm, Mac?” that comes from the direction of the bed. He sits up, and sees Sloan doing the same, except she’s clearly been sleeping. She rubs at her left eye, and blinks over at him blearily from the end of the bed, and he’s about to apologize for waking her when she says, “You look cold.”

Observant woman, that Sloan. “Yeah, kind of. But I’m alright,” he says. Out of the two of them, Sloan needs sleep more than he does.

She shakes her head, still looking like she’s out of it, and makes a vague grabbing gesture at him. “C’mere,” she says, “come sleep with me.”

MacCready is very lucky that Piper is not here with her camera, because he’s sure he must look ridiculous. His eyes go wide and his heart skips a beat before speeding up, and he feels a blush heat his face. _Is she suggesting what I think she’s suggesting?_ “Uh . . . Sloan?”

But Sloan doesn’t seem to realize what she just implied, which is somewhat a blessing. “It’s warm over here,” she says, still doing the grabbing motion. “Come here or you’ll freeze and die.”

MacCready’s stomach twists a bit when he recognizes the veiled reference to Sloan’s dead husband. After that, he can’t say no, so he goes quietly over to the right side of the bed. Sloan shifts over to the left so he has room to slip under the covers, and once they’re settled, Sloan goes right back to sleep, snoring lightly as though she never woke up in the first place.

Sloan’s right about one thing; it’s much warmer under the thick covers on the bed—though maybe that has something to do with the second body he’s sharing them with. MacCready shakes his head, trying to forget about the fact that Sloan is less than a foot away from him, and turns over so he’s facing away from her, lying right next to the edge of the bed so their arms or legs don’t accidentally brush.

Soon enough, exhaustion pulls him under, and MacCready falls asleep.

When he wakes up the next morning, MacCready’s much warmer than he was the previous night. Slowly, he opens his eyes, expecting to see the hot Wasteland sun shining in through the window, but there’s nothing. As his vision adjusts, he can see through the window that the horizon’s barely tinted pink, the sun about to rise but not quite there yet. So then why is he—?

Oh.

All at once, MacCready becomes aware of a pair of arms wrapped around his middle, of the sound of breathing in his ear, of a wall of soft warmth at his back. Sloan.

Oh, God. Sloan is spooning him.

The only thing that keeps MacCready from leaping right out of bed is the thought that Sloan probably doesn’t know she’s doing it. Her breaths are even and heavy, tickling the back of his neck, so she’s probably still asleep.

Well, then. It’d hardly be fair of him to wake her up, right? Sloan needs her sleep, after all. She’s recovering from a traumatic experience. If it helps to give her a few extra minutes of rest, well, who is MacCready to deny her that? And if it just so happens that a side effect of this is MacCready getting spooned by the woman he’s secretly in love with, well, that’s a sacrifice he’ll just have to make.

So MacCready forces himself to close his eyes and try not to think too hard about . . . any of this, really. As he starts to drift off, he feels Sloan’s arms tighten minutely around his waist. Or maybe he just imagines it. Either way, he relaxes into her hold and lets her even breaths lull him back to sleep.

When MacCready wakes up for the second time that morning, he’s alone on his side of the bed, and this time he’s only warm because of the sun shining directly into the room. As he sits up, he sees Sloan sitting with her back to him on her side of the bed, already fully dressed and feeding Dogmeat his breakfast of old jerky.

“Good morning,” she says, without turning around, but he can hear the smile in her voice.

“Morning,” MacCready mumbles, still half-asleep. He smooths a hand through his hair, trying to tell if he’s slept on it weird. He has, of course.

“Sleep well?” Sloan says, too casually.

Despite himself, MacCready feels his face heat up as the events of earlier that morning flash through his mind. Whether Sloan somehow extracted herself from MacCready before she woke up, or knows exactly what happened and is just playing dumb is anybody’s guess. If MacCready had to bet on it, though, he’d probably say it was the latter. That doesn’t mean he’s going to address it.

“Yeah, fine,” he says, and tries not to be as bad a liar as usual. “After you let me share the bed, I slept like a log the whole night.” He busies himself by going back over to his mattress and arranging his things, so he doesn’t have to meet Sloan’s eyes. “Thanks for that, by the way.”

“No problem at all,” Sloan says, and MacCready chooses that moment to pull his cap on and lower it over his eyes. He just can’t seem to stop _blushing_.

Thankfully, Sloan doesn’t press the issue and MacCready’s perfectly willing to ignore it if she is, so there’s nothing more said about the previous night’s activities.

After that, however, there are still a good five days to go.

It’s not that they don’t get along in close proximity; they get along fine, they always have, whether they’re on a mission or just wandering the Wasteland for the sake of discovery (Sloan’s words, not his). That’s not the problem.

The problem is that Sloan is acting strange. Not an I-almost-died-the-other-day type of strange, either; it’s more like an . . . avoidance kind of strange. As in Sloan is avoiding him, and that’s strange. Normally she’s the one to seek him out, to ask him to tag along on missions and help her out with settlement-related things she doesn’t think she can handle by herself. But now that they’re living in the same space, with Sloan forced to sit in one place for most of the day, it seems she’ll take any excuse not to be in the same room as him.

At first, MacCready’s not bothered. They both need their space, after all, and it’s always good to establish boundaries with any roommate, temporary or otherwise. He goes downstairs often, and talks with the other people staying at the hotel in the evenings. Sometimes Hancock will visit to check up on Sloan, and they’ll have a good laugh over drinks afterward. For the first few days, it’s not so bad.

But then, once she’s recovered a bit more, Sloan starts leaving the room just when MacCready comes in. She’ll say she’s going to stretch her legs, or have a drink downstairs, or take Dogmeat out for a run. He doesn’t say anything, obviously, but he does worry.

Maybe Sloan had noticed the spooning thing after all, and, like MacCready, just doesn’t want to make things awkward between them. Maybe she genuinely needs her space. Maybe the spooning thing _did_ makes things awkward between them, and that’s what’s happening now. Worst of all, maybe Sloan’s finally figured out MacCready’s secret and no longer wants anything to do with him.

If it’s the last one, which MacCready is fairly certain of by the fifth day, then he hopes that when Sloan’s finally recovered they can go their separate ways. The last thing he’d ever want is to overstay his welcome and cause Sloan discomfort. He decides that if she brings it up, he’ll go willingly.

Being on his own again might not be so bad if he knows that Sloan’s going to be alright. He’ll go back to Duncan, maybe give piecing his life back together a try. It’ll probably be fine. That’s what he tells himself, anyway.

But when the week is over, Sloan’s last remaining bandages are taken off, and they’re forced to vacate the room, Sloan doesn’t say anything about it. No apologies, but no dismissal, either. She simply asks him if he’s still alright with going to Sanctuary, and when he begrudgingly says he doesn’t mind, she smiles her good old Sloan smile and promises him she’ll find something for him to kill on the way there.

And then, as if by magic, it’s like none of it ever happened. They talk and joke and make jabs at each other, but only lightly. Sloan doesn’t seem the least bit uncomfortable, and even Dogmeat seems to be in better spirits than usual. They even find a nest of mole rats to shoot at at one point, so Sloan gets to make good on her word.

MacCready’s just about ready to chalk it up to an awkward week in a confined space, when he notices Sloan taking her husband’s ring out of her pocket again at some point. Over the course of the trip, she keeps taking it out and fiddling with it, then putting it back in her pocket. It’s clear something’s still bothering her; otherwise she’d just fiddle with the ring on her finger like she usually does. He tries to ignore it—it’s not exactly his business—but the thought of it sits at the back of his mind for the rest of the journey.

When they arrive in Sanctuary, the sun’s already set so Sloan suggests they hole up in her old house for the night and set out to find a vendor in the morning. MacCready agrees; as much as he hates staying in Sanctuary for any longer than necessary, he also isn’t a huge fan of wandering the Wasteland at night.

The house Sloan apparently used to live in before the war is dilapidated now; she’s taken everything useful out of it and put it in the Red Rocket Truck Stop a couple miles down the road, where synth-Shaun lives and what she calls her real home. The only things left in the old house are decaying furniture and, apparently, a few valuables lying around that Sloan never bothered to move to the Truck Stop.

Still, the place is more than adequate to stay in for one night. And, most importantly for both of them, it’s got a guest room.

MacCready takes that one, letting Sloan have her old bedroom. They’re across the hallway from one another, and the doors are somewhat disintegrated so they can kind of see into each other’s rooms, but it’s miles less crowded than one small hotel room.

Sloan goes to bed right away, but MacCready takes a few minutes to clean his sniper rifle before following suit. He’s still a little restless from thinking about Sloan’s ring, and cleaning his gun always manages to settle his nerves.

When he settles down for the night, he tries not to keep thinking about it. He almost succeeds, too.

That is until, almost half-asleep, he hears a shuffling sound coming from Sloan’s room. _Probably just Dogmeat moving around._ But then he hears the creak of a door opening.

His eyes snap open, and through the holes in his own door, he can see Sloan shutting the door softly behind her and disappearing off down the hallway. A few seconds later, he hears the front door creak open and shut.

MacCready tells himself not to bother. He tells himself to stay in bed and get his beauty sleep. He tells himself that it’s none of his business if Sloan chooses to sneak off somewhere in the night without a gun—

 _She doesn’t have a gun,_ MacCready realizes.

Less than a minute later, MacCready is out the door, rifle at his back and hat pressed firmly to his head. He can still see Sloan’s silhouette headed down the road at a leisurely pace, and he resolves only to follow her for a few minutes, to make sure she’s safe. She’s probably only going to check up on Shaun or something.

So then why did she feel the need to sneak out, and without a weapon?

Taking a deep breath, MacCready sets off after her.

* * *

Tommy’s ring is cold in Sloan’s hand by the time she reaches Vault 111. The whole night is cold, really, but in her mind she imagines that the ring is as frozen as Tommy’s body is. It’s a relief when the elevator starts to descend, and she’s enveloped by the warmth of the vault.

As Sloan walks through the decimated hallways, she considers what she’s about to do for about the fiftieth time in five days. She’s a bit heartened by the fact that she’s still as certain as ever about her decision.

Finally, she steps into a room she hasn’t seen in almost a year. It’s shaped like a long, thin rectangle, more like a hallway with a dead end than a room. The walls are lined with cryogenic tubes, all of them empty except for one at the far end.

As Sloan steps onto the tiled floor, the fluorescent lights in the ceiling flicker to life, casting a ghostly blue glow on everything in the room. Slowly, she makes her way down to the end of the room, the _tap_ of her boots on the tiled floor echoing through the chamber.

When she reaches the last tube, the only one still lit up from the inside, she stands square in front of it and makes herself look.

Tommy.

He looks the same as when she last saw him, of course. Same red hair, same ridiculous height. The ice has kept him perfectly preserved; like her, he hasn’t aged in over two hundred years.

His eyes are closed, and if she ignores the bullet wound, he looks like he might still be sleeping. For her own sake, Sloan lets herself pretend that he is. The ring is warm in her hand by now.

She sits down on the floor in front of the tube, cross-legged, and says, “Hey, Tommy.” Her voice sounds far too loud in the empty chamber. She smiles up at him. “I’ve missed you. A lot. I know it’s been awhile since we’ve talked, but—” She laughs, interrupting herself. “I sound like I’m an ex calling you up, don’t I? I promise, it’s not like that. Kind of the opposite, actually.” She ducks her head, and takes a breath to steady herself. This isn’t as hard as she thought it would be, but it’s still pretty damn hard.

“The world’s changed a lot since we walked into this vault together, Tommy. Things move faster than they used to. It’s been hard for me to get used to it, but . . . well, it’s been almost a year now, and I’ve gotten used to a lot of things. So much has happened in that small amount of time. I wouldn’t be surprised if you’d think I’d become a different person if you saw me today. The world’s changed, and I think I’ve changed along with it.

“I love you, Tommy. I’m always going to love you. You’ve given me some of the best years of my life, and I haven’t forgotten them. In fact, I think I might be clinging to them a little too much. I’ve . . . done some thinking in the past few weeks, Tommy, and I think it’s time for me to start to move on.” She chuckles softly. “I can practically hear you saying, ‘Sloan, you wouldn’t be bringing this up if you didn’t already have something in mind you wanted to say.’ And you’re right, I do.

“I’ve met . . . someone. I don’t know if you want to hear about him or not, because I know if I was dead and you met another girl I wouldn’t want to hear you gush about how great she is, but I won’t go on for too long, I promise. His name’s MacCready, except everyone calls him RJ, and I call him Mac. He’s a sharpshooter, and funny, and a good fighter, and sweeter than he likes to let on. He’s a good person, and he’s kept me safe out there. Just the other day, he saved my life. We trust each other, and trust’s a hard thing to find these days. I think if circumstances were different, you two would’ve gotten along.

“The point is, I care about him. A lot. And, if I’m honest, I think I love him. And I know you’d want me to be happy, even if you couldn’t be there to make that happen. So . . . I’m going to give it a shot.” She smiles, and, just as the realization comes into her head, says, “I guess I’m feeling lucky.”

Sloan stands, and steps up to the tube to stare into Tommy’s sleeping face. Carefully, she unlatches the door and opens it partway, and slips the ring onto Tommy’s finger. “I’ll always love you,” she whispers. “Goodbye, Tommy.”

She shuts the tube until it clicks, locked in place. For a moment, she lets herself place her hand against the cold glass, only inches from Tommy’s, and remembers. The pancakes in the morning, the slow dancing to waltzes in their living room, the ridiculously early Sunday brunches after church, the phone calls home when Tommy was away in the army, the days spent wandering the city without a destination, kissing on New Year’s, lighting off sparklers on the Fourth of July, those quiet mornings in bed when neither of them had anything to do but be with each other.

She remembers each moment in its turn, and then she takes her hand away from the glass, and lets them go.

When she finally turns around to head back to the surface, MacCready is standing in the middle of the room.

* * *

Crouching in the corner between a steel grate and a cryogenic tube isn’t exactly a comfortable position, but MacCready’s too busy eavesdropping to notice or care.

In retrospect, he’s probably gone a little too far with the “making sure Sloan’s safe” thing, but when he saw her enter the vault, of all places, his curiosity got the best of him. And now, he doesn’t regret it for a second.

The things Sloan is saying . . . he can’t believe his ears. Everything is the opposite of how he’d assumed she felt. That she’s changed, that she wants to move on, that she’s trying to let go of the past, that . . .

That she _loves_ him.

When he hears _that_ , MacCready’s heart does some complex acrobatics for a while and he has to cover his mouth to keep from gasping out loud. He hadn’t dared hope, amidst all the silence of the past few days, and the ring, and Sloan’s “good friend” line, that she might actually feel the same way about him as he does about her. He feels the tightness in his chest get lighter and lighter until he almost feels like laughing out loud, and he’s pretty sure he’s grinning like a complete lunatic. Happiness suffuses him for what seems like the first time in months. _She loves me, she loves me, she loves me . . ._ And this time, he’s not going to leave any room for doubt on his part. He’s going to walk straight out there and tell her exactly what he feels.

He straightens and steps out into plain view, and takes a few steps towards Sloan, who’s laying her hand on the glass of the tube, who’s turning around—

“Mac?” she says, surprised, and in the blue glow of the overhead lights she almost doesn’t look real.

“Sloan,” he says, all thoughts from earlier going straight out of his head.

“How—?” He’s caught Sloan off-guard, and now he’s sort of wishing he’d thought things through a bit more before barging out here in the open. “How did you—did you follow me here?”

The words come in a rush. “I—I saw you left without a weapon, and I wanted to make sure you were okay.” He takes a step towards her. “Sloan, you—”

“How . . . how much of that did you—?” She takes a step forward as well.

“All of it.” MacCready’s hands are shaking a bit, and he has to stick them in his pockets to still them.

“So, you heard about the—?” She takes another step.

“Yeah.” He does the same.

“And . . . I mean, is that . . .” Sloan’s only a few feet away from him now. “Is that okay?”

His hands won’t stop shaking, he’s too damn _happy_. “Sloan.”

“Yes?”

He steps forward one last time and takes her hand. “Sloan, I freaking _love_ you, of course it’s _okay_.”

Sloan’s eyes _light up_. It’s better than the shine of a million caps. “I . . . I had my suspicions, but I didn’t know for sure if you felt the same way,” she says.

MacCready laughs, startling them both. “And here I thought _I_ was the one being obvious.”

“We’re both kind of dumb, aren’t we?” Sloan says softly.

“Kind of, yeah.”

“Oh, come here,” she says, and pulls him into a hug. Not exactly what he was expecting, but he’ll take it, and MacCready hugs her back, tightly.

Apparently, Sloan’s read his mind, because when they separate she says, “Best not get to the kissing till we’re back on the surface. Tommy’s body is right over there,” and MacCready wholeheartedly agrees.

When they reach the surface, however, there’s no immediate kissing. They just wait for the vault to slide shut behind them and set off down the road back to the house. It’s still dark out, but the night is clear and mild, and as they walk, asphalt crunching under their feet, MacCready fancies he sees the hint of the rising sun on the horizon. At some point, Sloan takes his hand, and as MacCready clasps it back tightly, he finds that he doesn’t ever want to let go.

He doesn’t think he’ll have to, this time. He’s feeling lucky.

**Author's Note:**

> *Three Dog voice* Thanks for reading, chiiiiildren! Kudos and comments are always appreciated. Have yourselves an awesome day!


End file.
